100 Quotes by Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson, an unconventional journalist and writer, pioneered a style of journalism known as "Gonzo," characterized by its immersive and often subjective approach to reporting. Thompson's work went beyond traditional reporting, blending fact and fiction to convey the essence of the events and experiences he covered. His most famous work, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," exemplified this style, offering a visceral and unfiltered account of the counterculture movement in the 1960s. Thompson's unique voice and fearless exploration of topics ranging from politics to sports to drug culture left an indelible mark on American journalism. While his methods were controversial, his commitment to truth-telling and his willingness to challenge conventions have inspired generations of writers to embrace a more personal and daring approach to storytelling.
Hunter S. Thompson Quotes
Buy the ticket, take the ride. (Meaning)
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me. (Quote Meaning)
Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously. (Meaning)
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. (Quote Meaning)
There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. (Meaning)
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. (Quote Meaning)
Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it. (Meaning)
The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. (Quote Meaning)
You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands. (Meaning)
Some may never live, but the crazy never die. (Quote Meaning)
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. (Meaning)
If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up. (Quote Meaning)
Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas. (Meaning)
We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. (Quote Meaning)
I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. (Meaning)
Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing. (Quote Meaning)
Yesterday's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. (Meaning)
The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it. (Quote Meaning)
For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled. (Meaning)
A word to the wise is infuriating. (Quote Meaning)
Freedom is something that dies unless it's used. (Meaning)
Call on God, but row away from the rocks. (Quote Meaning)
You won't find reasonable men on the tops of tall mountains. (Meaning)
Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex. (Quote Meaning)
Today's pig is tomorrows bacon! (Meaning)
Graffiti is beautiful; like a brick in the face of a cop. (Quote Meaning)
In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. (Meaning)
For a loser, Vegas is the meanest town on earth. (Quote Meaning)
Morality is temporary, wisdom is permanent. (Meaning)
At the top of the mountain we are all snow leopards. (Quote Meaning)
Anything worth doing is worth doing well. (Meaning)
We can't stop here, this is bat country! (Quote Meaning)
Life is beautiful and living is pain. (Meaning)
It never got weird enough for me. (Quote Meaning)
Truth is weirder than any fiction I've seen. (Meaning)
I feel the same way about disco as I do about herpes. (Quote Meaning)
Faster, Faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death. (Meaning)
A man has to BE something; he has to matter. (Quote Meaning)
I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing. (Meaning)
We are all wired into a survival trip, now. (Quote Meaning)
Good people drink good beer. (Meaning)
Politics is the art of controlling your environment. (Quote Meaning)
You can't miss what you never had. (Meaning)
Too weird to live, and too rare to die. (Quote Meaning)
...the crazy never die. (Meaning)
Kill the body and the head will die. (Quote Meaning)
You took too much man, too much, too much. (Meaning)
Myths and legends die hard in America. (Quote Meaning)
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!
We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.
The downward spiral of Dumbness in America is about to hit a new low.
Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.
Anybody who thinks that 'it doesn't matter who's President' has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid war on the other side of the world-or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property-or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons-or locked up in the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone's imagination.
The slow-rising central horror of "Watergate" is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn something from it.
Human beings are the only creatures on earth that claim a God and the only thing that behaves like it hasn't got one.
The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy - then go back to the office & sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece. Probably the rarest form of life in American politics is the man who can turn on a crowd & still keep his head straight - assuming it was straight in the first place.
Sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind but falling in love and not getting arrested.
America: just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody, much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear.
So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?
Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing.
Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish - a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow - to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested... Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.
Hope rises and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain.
A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.
You won't find reasonable men on the tops of tall mountains.
On some nights, I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
Those who fail to learn from the brutal stompings visited on them in the past are doomed to be brutally stomped in the future.
My greatest talent is in my ability to choose good friends. It's about as important as things get.
We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic.
Graffiti is beautiful; like a brick in the face of a cop.
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
I drink much less than most people think, and I think much more than most people would believe. I am quite sincere about some of the things which people take very lightly, and almost insultingly unconcerned about some of the things which people take most seriously. In short, I am basically antisocial: certainly not to an alarming degree , but just more so than I appear to be.
I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.
Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives... and to the "good life", whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.
They say that "he who flies highest, falls farthest" - and who am I to argue? But we can't forget that "he who doesn't flap his wings, never flies at all".
I am a generous man, by nature, and far more trusting than I should be. Indeed. The real world is risky territory for people with generosity of spirit. Beware.
Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.
Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life.
As far as I'm concerned, it's a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity.
Writing is the flip side of sex - it's good only when it's over.
No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well, maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.
Freedom is something that dies unless it's used.
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.
It is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it.
Some may never live, but the crazy never die.
At the top of the mountain we are all snow leopards.
In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot - and it's only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
The only difference between the sane and the insane is that the sane have the power to lock up the insane.
Words are such a poor medium when you really want someone to feel something.
There's a terrible danger in voting for the lesser of two evils because the parties can set it up that way.
The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
Rush Limbaugh is a lame professional swine, and he makes a good living at it. He is like a hired geek in some traveling backwoods carnival - the freaks who bite the heads off chickens - but Limbaugh is a modernized geek who thinks he can bite the heads off of people.
I just usually go with my own taste. If I like something, and it happens to be against the law, well, then I might have a problem.
Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers and warriors.
I was never trying, necessarily, to be an outlaw. It was just the place in which I found myself.
For a loser, Vegas is the meanest town on earth.
If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix.
It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy.
I have warned many times about the guaranteed dangers of betting with your heart instead of your head - big darkness, soon come - but every once in a while you get a fair chance to have it both ways, and the annual NCAA basketball Tournament is one of them.
Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency.
We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer.
Insanity is a legal term. Crazy is an art form.
Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.
Never fire a warning shot. It is a waste of ammunition.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.
The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees, except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don't mind admitting it.
All political power comes from the barrel of either guns, pussy, or opium pipes, and people seem to like it that way.
Good news is rare these days, and every glittering ounce of it should be cherished and hoarded and worshipped and fondled like a priceless diamond.
There are always risks in challenging excessive police power, but the risks of not challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal.
It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids.
An outlaw can be defined as somebody who lives outside the law, beyond the law and not necessarily against it.
In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone.
I damn well intend to keep on living the way I think I should.
One of the most basic factors in sports is that winning becomes a habit, and losing is the same way. When failure starts to feel normal in your life or your work or even your darkest vices, you won't have to go looking for trouble, because trouble will find you. Count on it.
Avoid being seized by the police. The cops are not your friends. Don't tell them anything.
Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday.
I have always loved marijuana. It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits - and millions of Americans agree with me.
There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.
We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world — a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts.
With the truth so dull and depressing, the only working alternative is wild bursts of madness and filigree.
Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach.
If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.
We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.
Morality is temporary, wisdom is permanent.
I think I'm one of the most patriotic people that I've ever encountered in America. I consider myself a bedrock patriot. I participate very actively in local politics, because my voice might be worthwhile. I participate in a meaningful way - not by donations; I work at it.
All the blood is drained out of democracy - it dies - when only half the population votes.
I will fight for your right to be weird- just as I know you will fight for mine.
The Edge...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others-the living-are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there.
It was obvious that he was a man who marched through life to the rhythms of some drum I would never hear.
Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed.
1) Never trust a cop in a raincoat. 2) Beware of enthusiasm and of love, both are temporary and quick to sway. 3) If asked if you care about the world's problems, look deep into the eyes of he who asks, he will never ask you again. 4) Never give your real name. 5) If ever asked to look at yourself, don't look. 6) Never do anything the person standing in front of you can't understand. 7) Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.
Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba.
No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.
Fear is a healthy instinct, not a sign of weakness. It is a natural self-defense mechanism that is common to felines, wolves, hyenas, and most humans. Even fruit bats know fear, and I salute them for it. If you think the world is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear.
Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.
As your attorney, it is my duty to inform you that it is not important that you understand what I'm doing or why you're paying me so much money. What's important is that you continue to do so.
We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear
I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on Fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed. My father taught me that, along with a few other things that have kept my life interesting.
Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all...It was pitiful...I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him 'Mr. President,' and then I felt ashamed.
Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.
There is an ancient Celtic axiom that says 'Good people drink good beer.' Which is true, then as now. Just look around you in any public barroom and you will quickly see: Bad people drink bad beer. Think about it.
Crazy' is a term of art; 'Insane' is a term of law. Remember that, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble.
As you were, I was. As I am, you will be.
Yesterday's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why.
Today's pig is tomorrows bacon!
There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment.
A cap of good acid costs $5, and for that you can hear the Universal Symphony, with God singing solo and the Holy Ghost on drums.
A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit - no matter how often he's reminded of it - that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley.
God's mercy on you degenerate swine.
Wake up and ponder the future.
A sense of humor is the main measure of sanity.
There’s a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It’s a goddamned luxury, and if I were you, I’d take advantage of it while you can.
It's in my interest, in ours perhaps, or maybe the interests of the greater good, for me to smoke a joint, and calm down.
There is no story unless you've written it.
That is the problem with this rich and anguished generation. Somewhere a long time ago they fell in love with the idea that politicians- even the slickest and brightest presidential candidates- were real heroes and truly exciting people. That is wrong on its face. They are mainly dull people with corrupt instincts and criminal children.
Liberalism itself has failed, and for a pretty good reason. It has been too often compromised by the people who represented it.
No one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company.
Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.
Some people will tell you that slow is good - but I'm here to tell you that fast is better. I've always believed this, in spite of the trouble it's caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba.
I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it.
The most important thing a writer can have [is] the ability to live with the constant loneliness and a strong sense of revulsion for the banalities of everyday socializing.
It was one of those fine little love stories that can make you smile in your sleep at night.
The pleasure is in the path, the search for something good.
On some days you get what you want, and on others, you get what you need.
I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time.
To make a point of declaring friendship is to cheapen it. For men's emotions are very rarely put into words successfully.
As long as I'm learning something, I figure I'm OK - it's a decent day.
We can't stop here, this is bat country!
There is something fresh and crisp about the first hours of a Caribbean day, a happy anticipation that something is about to happen, maybe just up the street or around the next corner.
I find that by putting things in writing I can understand them and see them a little more objectively. ... For words are merely tools and if you use the right ones you can actually put even your life in order, if you don't lie to yourself and use the wrong words.
All my life, my heart has sought a thing I cannot name. Remembered line from a long- forgotten poem
I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me
I never knew where I was going, but I ripped the tits off of everything that got in my way. By the time they figured me out, it was too late.
I felt a tremendous distance between myself and everything real.
If you get people asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers.
He had that rare weird electricity about him - that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving normally.
Fear is just another word for ignorance.
Familiarity seems to breed contempt.
― Hunter S. Thompson Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
